Temporary shelter
In April 2022, schools, sports halls and kindergartens in western Ukraine became temporary shelters for people fleeing Russia's full-scale invasion.
I visited these makeshift shelters and met ten Ukrainians who had been forced to leave their homes. They had reached relative safety, but their futures remained uncertain. How long would they stay? Where would they go next? Would they ever return home?
Temporary Shelter brings together their portraits and personal testimonies. Each person shares a different experience of displacement, giving a human voice to a crisis so often described through statistics. The shelters offered a place to stay, but no certainty about what would come next.
Kirill (34) Mukachevo, boxing gym
“Both my home and my workplace are in ruins”
On the morning of February 24, we woke up to the sound of a bomb exploding near our apartment in Kharkiv. The shock wave was so strong that the entire building shook. We packed our most important belongings and went to my parents' home in a nearby village. As the bombing continued, we took shelter in an underground cellar.
By around ten o'clock, Russian forces had reached the outskirts of the village, where they clashed with Ukrainian defenders. That first day seemed to last a whole year. It was the longest day of my life.
We left on the eleventh day of the war, when we ran out of food. The shops were empty, looted or destroyed. There was no electricity or mobile phone service.
The residents of our apartment building had set up a Viber group to share news from Kharkiv. That's how I later found out that our home had been hit by a rocket during the first days of the war.
I worked at a BMW showroom selling motorcycles. I loved my job. The entire building was destroyed in the bombing.
Both my home and my workplace are in ruins.
Volodimir (20) Uzhhorod, sports hall
“I'm not getting out of bed, even if there's a war”
On February 24, my brother woke me up and told me the war had started. I didn't believe him. I said, "I'm not getting out of bed, even if there's a war" and went back to sleep.
Later, a huge explosion woke me up. I went outside and saw another missile strike. That's when I started to worry. My friends and I got together to figure out what to do.
By the evening, I'd calmed down. I accepted that there was a war, but I was still going to sleep in my comfortable bed, not down in the basement.
We left Kyiv on March 5. My mother went to Slovakia with my two younger brothers, while my older brother and I came to Uzhhorod. We can't leave the country because of wartime military service restrictions.
My brother found a job at the local post office, but otherwise it's difficult to find work. Uzhhorod has a population of around 100,000 and more than 40,000 displaced people have arrived here. Many of them are looking for jobs.
We receive aid regularly and we're saving my brother's wages so that we can return to Kyiv.
Tamara (63) Vynohradiv, college
“The most important thing is that my son is safe”
I knew the war was coming. We had planned to leave Kirovohrad on February 26, but on the morning of the 24th, my son called and said we couldn't wait. We had to leave that day.
I knew one of my neighbours was a Russian sympathiser. Russians had been coming to meet with him since 2014. On the first day of the war, I went outside and saw him celebrating with others, drinking champagne. When they noticed me, they shouted, "We'll kill you!"
I went to Uman with my two sons, aged 19 and 40. Air raid sirens sounded four or five times a day and each time we went down to the basement. My older son has asthma and wasn't called up for military service because of it. The cold basement was especially difficult for him.
We wanted to escape abroad, but my sons weren't allowed to leave the country, so we stayed here in Zakarpattia.
Even if the war ends, I don't want to go back. I'm afraid of the Russian sympathisers in Kirovohrad.
I'd rather go to Italy, somewhere on the coast, where the climate would be better for my son's health.
Katia (32) Uzhhorod, gymnasium
“It was so cold that even the fish in the aquarium froze”
I'm a butcher. I continued going to work after February 24 because people still needed food.
I lived in Lysychansk. The front line had been nearby for eight years, so we were used to seeing military units. It had become part of everyday life. The sound of gunfire didn't surprise me. What shocked me was that a new offensive had begun.
In the first days, a support tower for a high-voltage power line was destroyed, leaving us without electricity.
It was so cold that even the fish in the aquarium froze.
The city was under blockade and surrounded by mines. On March 31, we boarded a train in Sloviansk. I had no idea where we were going. I only knew we had to leave.
We spent a day and a half on the train. It was terribly crowded and unbearably hot. There were lots of dogs and cats. Sedatives were handed out on the train and not just to people. The cats were stressed, too.
I really liked the scenery along the way. We'd never been here before, but we couldn't enjoy the journey. We weren't travelling as tourists. We were refugees.
Lili (61) Chepa, kindergarten
“Let me kill at least one Russian!”
I worked as a postal worker for Ukrposhta in Kyiv. When the war broke out, I immediately went to the military and asked what I could do to help.
I cooked varenyky and borscht and baked bread for the soldiers stationed in the city. Every day, I brought them tea and coffee. I tried to do everything I could. Later, I went to help at the hospital where wounded soldiers were being treated.
We arrived in Chepa on March 7.
Here, we've planted flowers in the kindergarten garden, repainted the fence and helped prepare meals in the kitchen.
My son stayed in Kyiv and joined the army. He wants to fight. "Let me kill at least one Russian!" he said. "I hate them so much!"
I'm ready to help rebuild the city and the country. Life is often unfair and it's terrible that we have to go through something like this.
I'm waiting for the war to end and I hope those responsible for all of this receive the punishment they deserve.
Valentin (33) Onokivtsi, school classroom
“We are Ukrainians, we want to live in Ukraine”
I worked in a shoe factory in Sloviansk. We stayed in the city for a month because we thought the fighting would end soon. Eventually, we left by train on March 25.
If our home remains on Ukrainian territory, we'll stay. If it becomes Russian, we'll leave. We are Ukrainians. We want to live in Ukraine.
Here in Onokivtsi, I spend my days walking around and playing football with my children.
Under Ukraine's wartime rules, fathers of three minor children are exempt from military service and may be allowed to leave the country.
My wife has two children from a previous marriage and we have two together. But because not all four children are legally registered as mine, I haven't been allowed to cross the border.
We've written to the ministry and are still waiting for a decision.
We'd also like to rent an apartment here, but prices are so high that we can't afford one. I haven't started looking for work because I don't know what tomorrow will bring.
If we receive permission from the ministry, we'll leave immediately. Otherwise, we'll stay until the war is over.
Katia (20) Vynohradiv, college
“A child of war”
My little boy, Mihail, was born at 7:45 in the morning on February 25, in Korosten. It's quite close to the Belarusian border, from where Russian forces launched their attack.
The war was already being felt. I could hear gunfire from the hospital, even after I'd been taken out of the delivery room.
Mihail was born into war.
The following day, I had to leave the hospital because there wasn't enough room. We tried to wait out the fighting in a cellar, where I caught a cold.
We arrived in Vynohradiv on April 1. My husband, who's 25, brought us here before returning to Korosten to join the army. He's now on a few days' leave and has come to visit us.
Before the war, we had so many plans. Now everything feels hopeless. It's impossible to plan for the future when you don't know what will happen next.
I worked as a kindergarten teacher and my husband worked in a sand mine.
When the war is over, we want to go home and raise our child there.
Hanna (78) Drotyntsi, kindergarten
“My own relatives don't believe me”
My husband and I lived in Makariv, a small village near Kyiv.
I never saw a Russian soldier, but they kept bombing the village. They just dropped bombs, dropped bombs, dropped bombs. The whole village was on fire.
We carried our beds down to the basement and lived there for a month, surrounded by shelling, together with my husband and our sick daughter.
On March 30, buses came to evacuate us older people. The younger residents had already fled Makariv long before.
Every morning and evening, we pray together here. We ask God to bring peace as soon as possible. I thank God that the Ukrainian people are strong enough to endure these terrible circumstances and support one another.
I have relatives in Moscow. We used to be on good terms, but now we're enemies. They haven't believed me for eight years. The propaganda there is so strong that they don't even believe there's a war here.
I tell them what I've been through, that people are being killed and cities are being bombed.
But my own relatives don't believe me.
Katerina (34) Chepa, kindergarten
“My mother tongue is Russian, but now I'll only speak Ukrainian!”
I worked as a hairdresser in central Kyiv.
We spent the first day of the war in the basement of our twenty-storey apartment building. There were so many people crammed into such a small space that some were practically lying on top of one another.
My husband immediately joined the army. He already had military experience.
Before the war, I spoke Russian in everyday life, at home and at work. Everyone understood me and it had never been a problem.
Of course I can speak Ukrainian too. I went to a Ukrainian school.
Russian is my mother tongue, but since the war began, I've refused to speak it. I'll only speak Ukrainian now. I don't want anyone to see me as the enemy.
We hate all Russians. Russian people, Russian dogs, everything Russian.
We arrived in Zakarpattia on March 12. We fled mainly because of our children. I wanted to protect them.
But having to hide in the basement had already traumatised them.
My daughter starts crying whenever she hears an air raid siren. They went off twice last night, too.
Tatjana (27) Berehove, Viktor's unfinished apartment
“The sky was lit up by rockets”
I lived in Irpin with my husband and our one-year-old son. I worked with a team renovating apartments.
On the first day of the war, I looked out of the window and saw the sky lit up by rockets.
We packed our belongings in fifteen minutes and left for the Kirovohrad area. My husband stayed there. He works for the government.
An acquaintance of ours, Viktor, told us he could take us in at his unfinished apartment in Berehove.
The walls hadn't been plastered and only the basic utilities — water, electricity and heating — had been installed. But we were happy to move in.
The important thing was that we couldn't hear the war anymore.
Viktor took in four families and we all tried to help him finish the apartment. The men laid parquet flooring, built stairs and installed kitchen furniture and countertops.
We mothers baked, cooked and looked after the children.
At least while we were busy, we didn't have to think about the horrors of the war.